Well, I would add something, as to i live now just few meters from where Lebeda worked. BTW- Antonín Vincenz Lebeda; locks post-1820 or 1821 when he founded his shop in Prague always signed "AV Lebeda in Prague".
The pistol may be rare in the US, but his work is "quite plentiful"-some thousands pieces. What makes it unique is the fact that it´s almost impossible to find something better from the era in any respect you choose. Also, his work is a bit scarce on the market, because if someone has it, he keeps it.
He´s the best gunmaker at least of the middle Europe, maybe of the whole continental europe of about 1825-1857 (when he died) period. In 1832 he was named as "court´s gunmaker" of the austrian Habsburg dynasty-not too cool, there were precedesors and ascentors-but he was the only ever known private person or company, who was allowed (and asked for!) to use stamp of the double headed eagle of the Austro-hungarian monarchy on his private (not state-dedicated) work. Nobody ever before, nobody ever after. Nobody at the time could ever imagine that in his wildest dreams.
His rifles were on the begining of the 300 m offhand matches, shot at nicely painted targets by painters like Josef Mánes, Václav Sekal, Josef Navrátil-the most famous painters of the age and region. True pieces of art in every respect. The targets were from about 12x16 to 25x40 inches, even the smallest had even smaller part of the scene which counted as the hit zone. The bigger targets sometimes had differently valuable hit zones. After the shot, the target was signed by all shooters who shot at, in order from the closest and most valuable hit-it seems to me that rarely there´s difference between number of shooters and number of mostly about 40 cal. holes. The winner got the target. (I would love to have some of that paintings hanging on my wall...) I´m not sure about the sighters to some other target placed below or aside of the painting, but I suppose five sighters and one shot to count. Patch and ball rifles, no conicals as far as I know-you imagine that. Lebeda´s rifles were the ones which allowed this and started a hundred years of precision and fine rifle mfg shops in the Czech (now Czech republic) part of the austro-hungarian monarchy. Sadly, german occupation during WW2 and later forced soviet-loyal governing with all the communist bulls*/t killed these shops, as well as efectively erased awareness about guns, posessing them and using them among vast majority of people.
